That’s right friends! Coming to a city near you* this October to December, its the Microsoft Tech Days 08! And the reigning members of Microsoft’s in-house wrestling team, The Nation of Domination**, are EXPECTING you to come out and LEARN, INTERACT, GET FREE STUFF, and LEARN EVEN MORE! Don’t be caught in the cross hairs of Sasha “The Rock” Krsmanovic’s eyebrow raise, ‘cause you know the MVP Elbow is just around the corner!

Ok, so seriously though…Microsoft is going to be coming through Canada between October and December bringing Microsoft Tech Days ‘08. Previously, Microsoft held an event called Energize IT in Toronto every year. But instead of doing that this time around, they decided to take it on the road! So how does this differ from regular Microsoft events that we’ve all seen in the past?

1. All Thriller, No Filler

This is *NOT* a marketing tour! It’s a one to two day conference (depending on your city) that focusses on learning and using Microsoft technologies. Think of it as a Microsoft focussed code camp of sorts. Below is a sample of what you can expect schedule wise:

2. It’s For Everyone

Ok, so there have been Microsoft events that included both IT Pro and Developer groups, but I wanted to point out that this is indeed a dual-competency event. There are sessions and tracks for both IT Pros and Developers.

3. It’s NOT FREE

Say what? Oh, you heard me the first time! This is *NOT* a free event. Keep in mind what I said earlier though: this is *NOT* a marketing event either! This is intended to give you opportunities to learn and experience Microsoft technologies, not just hear marketing talk and see “I didn’t write a single line of code”*** demos.

I can tell you about all the benefits of networking with your peers, having great deep-dive sessions on various technologies, and having the speakers be available in between sessions. But you really want to know what the swag kit looks like, don’t you? All right…

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how the cost of attending this is infinitely recouped by getting the TechEd 2008 DVD Set! I attended TechEd and let me tell you…CRAZY amount of content and information on those DVD’s. You normally would have to attend Tech Ed to get that, so that’s worth the price of admission right there.

Also, that might account for why there’s a limit of 5000 people who can register.

Where Do I Sign Up?!

So you’ve decided that you want to check this out, get more info to convince your boss, or you’re just really scared that John Bristowe and Jean-Luc David are going to lay the smackdown on you. Here’s where you can register and get more info:

Keep in mind that right now there’s nothing there but the schedule. That’s because this is *just* off the presses and public knowledge as of today, but check back on that site often and I’ll also put a blog post up when registration is open.

Hope to see you out!

D

*A city near you unless you’re Regina or Saskatoon…sorry guys!

**Nation of Domination was a stable in the WWF (now WWE) and featured The Rock before he was…well, The Rock.

@Donald - I understand, you'll be too busy writing wrappers for Textboxes and Radio Buttons. ;)

@Astatke - I think the idea was to spread the locations in places where people could potentially get to them if they wanted to...so since Edmonton and Calgary are pretty close, Edmontonians could drive down to it. Same idea for Regina and Winnipeg (although its a bit further of a drive)

@Justice - Donald is just jealous I have more chicks following my blog than his. ;)
9/16/2008 2:40 PM | D'Arcy from Winnipeg

Ooh, very nice. Looks worth attending just for the swag bag. Now I'm left with a dilemma - do I attend this or Web Directions North? I'm not doing both! Suspect I will give WDN a miss, as although I have attended it before, and it was great, this would be a new thing for me. I like new things :)
9/21/2008 12:43 AM | Grant Palin